Road music – radio is still king as pop tops poll

Road music, or the music you play as you drive, can be quite a personal thing. You can almost recall different stages of life through the type of music you’d play in your car.

But as you get older and have to compromise it becomes a whole new ball game. I’m sure we have all been through this.

I’m sure many people can recall rocking out to Gun N Roses or AC/DC with pouted lips as they tore up that winding country road. Well this latest piece of research from YourParkingSpace.co.uk looks into the kind of driving music people are listening to right now. Unsurprisingly perhaps, pop music came top with 33% from the 1,236 participants throughout the UK who took part. Seen as though this is the most popular music by its very nature this is entirely expected.

I, for one, mix up genres like a flibbertigibbet. I love nothing more than tearing up the tarmac with Beyoncé pounding in my ears. As I said earlier you also have to bear in mind pester power. It’s hard to play your beloved Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac (classic road trip songs) when your kids are complaining in the back. Just for the sake of peace we often revert to Radio 1. A peaceful life sometimes beats having your way on the music.

That said classic rock comes in second at 24%. This is probably dads (and mums) finally allowed to have full control when driving without their little bosses in the back seat. Finally, we can blast out Bohemian Rhapsody and other best rock driving songs as we crawl along to work in the mile-long queue of traffic.

What is your favourite music genre to listen to while driving?

Pop music – 33%

Classic Rock – 24%

Electronic/dance – 16%

Indie – 11%

Hip Hop – 7%

Metal – 6%

Country – 3%

Of course this is all slightly skewed by radio and by kids harassing you for their own music as I’ve said. This is validated when you look at the results, when listening to general radio, is taken out of the equation. When drivers are choosing the music themselves the result are quite different.

Results from drivers listening to their own music:

Classic Rock – 29%

Electronic/Dance – 21%

Pop music – 19%

Indie – 13%

Metal – 9%

Country – 7%

Hip Hop – 2%

Managing Director of YourParkingSpace, Harrison Woods, commented on the survey saying: “It’s interesting to see that many drivers still listen to the good old radio especially with the emergence of streaming services and the technology available in cars today. It’s also surprising to see that that younger generations are listening to classic rock, while 35 to 44 year olds are listening to predominantly dance music, something that you would not have expected before the survey was conducted.”